Missed.
Nikolai hesitated. The attacker was a woman. He couldn’t believe the United States government would send a woman to stop him if they had somehow learned of the assassination plot.
And where was everyone else? There should be dozens of agents, all armed to the teeth, wearing flak jackets and shouting through bullhorns. There should be attack helicopters and sirens and shouting and chaos. But there was none of that—just one lone woman who had scrambled out of sight behind the safety of the big air conditioning unit.
He glanced around and saw her weapon lying on the roof where it had fallen when she tumbled over the tripwire. Probably she had a backup weapon, but Nikolai wasn’t worried. Before she could shoot him she would have to aim, and to do that would require exposing herself to peer around the edge of the air conditioning unit. The moment she did he would put a hole in her head.
He sighted down the barrel of the Makarov and began walking slowly toward the air conditioner. He believed in aggressive action.
As he approached, his attacker poked a head around the edge of the unit as he had known she would. But it was the wrong edge. He had been covering the right side of the unit, so when he spotted the face peering out at him, he had to pull the gun hard to the left before squeezing the trigger. Again he missed. He cursed softly.
He kept moving, surprised the attacker had not yet returned fire. That could only mean one thing: she had no backup weapon. That meant she’d have to make a move for the gun lying out in the open.
He adjusted course slightly, turning toward the attacker’s weapon just as she appeared from behind the air conditioning unit. Her dive was perfect and as she landed on the gravel, her hands wrapped around the gun and she turned in one smooth motion and aimed it at him. She’s good, Nikolai thought with grudging professional respect.
And he fired.
She dodged and he caught her in the right shoulder. She squeezed off a wild shot and then the gun fell from her hand onto the roof. Just like that, she was helpless.
He took another step, centering the gun on her chest. He would put one slug center-mass, then finish with a double-tap to the head. Textbook. The entire exchange had taken no more than a minute, and down on Columbia Road eight stories below, Ronald Reagan was still droning on about the American Dream. There was still time to accomplish his mission.
He began to squeeze the trigger and vaguely registered a blur of motion coming fast from his left. Then he was hit by what felt like a guided missile and driven to the roof.
50
June 2, 1987
10:01 a.m.
Minuteman Insurance Building, Washington, D.C.
Shane reached the seventh-floor entrance just as Tracie was disappearing through the roof access door. He staggered down the hallway, pain blasting through his head. His vision ebbed and waned, roiling black clouds forming at the edges of his sight. His mouth tasted dry and sour and he felt like he was going to puke. He wondered if the tumor was going to take him right now. The doctors had said he had weeks left, maybe even a couple of months, but what the hell did they really know?
He reached the roof access door and pulled it open slowly. His hands were shaking and not from nerves. From above, a soft Phht sound floated down the stairwell. A silenced gunshot. Tracie wasn’t carrying a silenced weapon, which meant the Russian had fired the shot. He prayed he wasn’t too late.
He willed the pain to the back of his mind, pushing through the darkness threatening to overtake him. Took the steps two at a time. Noticed bloodstains on the concrete. Didn’t slow. The stains were dry, so they weren’t Tracie’s, and that was all that mattered.
Shane reached the top and paused. In just the time it had taken to climb the steps, three more shots had been fired, one of them from Tracie’s gun. That gunshot had sounded loud and clear, a sharp crack, but from far below, Shane could still hear the president speaking. The gun battle raging on a rooftop just a couple of buildings away had not yet been heard, or had been heard but its significance not yet understood.
He eased his head around the edge of a rusted metal bulkhead, toward the sound of the gunfire, and his blood ran cold. Tracie lay on her back, blood leaking through her clothes from a shoulder wound. Her gun lay on the roof a few feet away and a man in a baseball cap was walking slowly in her direction, pistol pointed at her. A long, black sound suppressor protruded from the barrel.
Tracie was helpless.
She had seconds to live.
And Shane acted.
He forgot about the pain, forgot about the tumor eating his brain away from the inside, forgot about Ronald Reagan and about the CIA and Soviet assassination plots. Forgot about everything. Only one thing mattered, and that was saving the woman he had fallen so unexpectedly and completely in love with.
Shane rounded the corner of the bulkhead, at full speed in just two steps. He had been an undersized linebacker on the Bangor High football team, the guy on the defense who was considered too small and too slow to be successful, but who had shown the doubters up by being named to the All-Maine defensive team two years running.
Just as the Russian shooter looked up in surprise, he squared his shoulders and lowered his head and hit the assassin in the chest with everything he had. He hadn’t laced on pads since the final game of his senior year a decade ago, but the muscle memory was still there, and he wrapped the shooter up with his arms and churned with his legs and knocked the man down like he was the unluckiest running back ever.
The shooter hit the deck and Shane’s one hundred eighty pounds fell on top of him and Shane heard the “oof” of air being forced out of lungs, a sound he had heard hundreds of times during his football days, and he felt a surge of savage glee, an elation he had never before experienced.
And then the man used Shane’s momentum against him, rolling backward and kicking upward with his legs, and Shane felt himself tumbling head first, feet flying over his head, and he landed on his back with a thud, and then the shooter was on top of him.
The man had dropped his gun when Shane hit him, and now Shane spotted it out of the corner of his eye, on the roof right next to them. Shane grabbed for it and missed, scattering roofing gravel. Grabbed again and watched as the shooter’s hand reached it first, seeing the struggle almost in slow motion.
Shane wrapped his hands together and drove them upward. He was unable to get much force behind the blow, but connected solidly under the shooter’s jaw and felt as much as heard the man’s teeth clatter together. The shooter’s head was knocked backward and he slumped sideways, and Shane bulled his way onto his hands and knees, scrabbling to his feet.
And found himself staring directly into the silenced barrel of the Russian’s gun.
51
June 2, 1987
10:02 a.m.
Minuteman Insurance Building
Tracie watched helplessly as Shane struggled with the assassin for control of his gun. He had it in his hand for a split second and then he lost it, and in that moment she knew with dread certainty that the KGB agent was about to put a bullet in Shane’s skull.
She turned and scrambled on her knees to her own gun, her right arm numb from shoulder to fingers. She ignored her useless right hand and picked up the weapon in her left and then turned, amazed to see that somehow Shane had fought off the Russian and gotten to his feet.
But so had the assassin. And his weapon was still in his hand.
She raised the Beretta but was powerless to take a shot. Shane stood directly between her and the Russian. If she fired now, she’d put a slug in Shane’s back. Even if he were to move suddenly, with the gun in her unfamiliar left hand, she had no confidence she could hit the assassin.
The Russian raised the gun, angling it at Shane, but then Shane feinted left and surged straight forward, swatting the weapon upward, gaining himself a split-second reprieve. The assassin countered by kicking Shane in the shin, and then pistol-whipping him, slashing the butt of the gun across the side of his face.
/> Shane went down in a heap and the moment he did, Tracie fired, her weapon trained on the Russian’s chest.
But her target was no longer there. The instant he hit Shane, he leapt back, either in anticipation of Tracie’s move or to get a better angle on the shot he would take to eliminate Shane.
Tracie didn’t know which it was and didn’t care. What mattered was that she had missed, and now the Russian fired, striking Shane, who had hit the deck and rolled, knowing what was coming, but the Russian anticipated that, too, and fired not at the spot where Shane fell, but at the spot he would move to.
Shane took a slug in the chest and lay still.
The Russian moved again and turned his weapon on her.
Tracie pulled herself together and raised her gun again, but too late—the Russian fired. Tracie felt a stab of white-hot pain in her left shoulder and dropped to the roof one last time. Her gun fell next to her but it was useless now. She had no feeling in either arm. She couldn’t move her fingers. She squeezed her eyes closed and waited for the final shot, the one that would end everything.
She could hear chaotic screaming and sirens, and the sound of people running far below. They had heard the gunshots. By now Reagan would be halfway to his armored limo. She would die knowing she had prevented the assassination of the president, but it would be small consolation. Shane Rowley was dead, or would be soon. Shane, whose only sin was to pull her from the wreckage of a burning airplane. Shane, the man who had done much more for her than she could ever repay. Shane, the man she had fallen in love with.
A second that felt like a lifetime passed and when nothing happened, Tracie opened her eyes. She lifted her head toward the KGB assassin and blinked, stunned. Shane had risen to his feet and was barreling across the rooftop at the Russian.
The man turned away from Tracie in surprise and squeezed off a hurried shot. The slug struck Shane somewhere on the right side of his body, but he kept coming, slowing only slightly. He had started out about fifteen feet away from the Russian and had now closed the half the distance. He stumbled, placed a hand on the roof and pushed himself upright and kept coming.
The Russian fired again and this time the bullet hit Shane square in the chest, the second time he had been shot in the same spot. He stopped and staggered and, then, unbelievably, kept coming. He hit the Russian like a freight train and drove him backward. The man windmilled his arms in a desperate attempt to maintain his balance and the gun flew out of his hand, arcing high into the air, then dropping to the roof with a metallic clank.
Shane kept driving with his legs, shoulder planted squarely in the Russian’s chest, moving him backward but unable to take him down. They were running out of room quickly, and Tracie could see what was about to happen. She shouted, “Nooo!” as the pair of fighting men struck the roof’s two-foot-high retaining wall.
They were moving fast, but to Tracie’s horrified eyes the events played out in slow motion, like some awful sports clip being shown on the evening news. The Russian’s legs struck the retaining wall just above the knees and he reached for the wall with both hands in an attempt to avoid tumbling over backward. Shane pumped his legs one last time, churning relentlessly, and the Russian dropped over the edge.
And so did Shane.
He swiveled his head and locked eyes with her, and then he disappeared.
A second later, the screaming intensified on Columbia Road far below.
52
June 5, 1987
1:00 p.m.
Langley, Virginia
The office of CIA Director Aaron Stallings was spacious and infused with an old-money, country-club stuffiness. Leather-bound volumes filled oak bookshelves lining the walls from floor to ceiling. A small television set mounted in one corner of the office had been tuned to CNN, volume muted, and was broadcasting three-day-old footage of the events at the Minuteman Insurance Building in a continuous silent loop. A massive walnut desk dominated the room, and the carpeting was plush and thick, serving to deaden sound so completely that voices seemed to struggle into the air and then vanish.
The overall theme of the office seemed to be one of stern intimidation, Stallings making the pecking order clear to visitors: he was important and they were not. The effect was wasted on Tracie. Her future with the agency would be determined by this meeting, but she wasn’t at all certain she wanted to continue, anyway.
She had been overcome by depression since watching Shane Rowley tumble over the roof of the Minuteman Building three days ago, an ennui that seemed to have clamped onto her heart. She wondered if it would ever ease. Shane had sacrificed his own life to save hers, somehow struggling to his feet after being shot in the chest, then still managing to pack enough of a punch to overcome a trained and armed professional assassin, despite being weaponless and suffering numerous bullet wounds.
Shane was being hailed as a hero, lauded on television and in the worldwide press as an ordinary man who had stumbled onto a plot to assassinate the president of the United States, and then foiled that plot at the expense of his own life.
All of which was true, of course, as far as it went. But the authorities were releasing few details of how this “ordinary citizen” had single-handedly taken down the lone gunman, or even how he had managed to uncover the plot while working as an air traffic controller and living his life far off the beaten path in Bangor, Maine. His escape from the massacre at the Bangor Airport was receiving airtime as well, its link to the assassination attempt still unclear.
For now, the compelling human interest angle was dominating the news cycles, and Tracie knew that by the time it occurred to the networks and reporters to dig below the surface, a bland cover story would have been concocted, one which would satisfy the public while simultaneously avoiding any possibility that embarrassing details might be leaked involving potentially treasonous activity by long-time CIA officials.
No doubt a team of agency psychologists and spin-doctors was hard at work right now, doing exactly that. Just another day at the company.
Of the assassin Shane had thwarted, little was known, officially or otherwise. His broken body had been found on the sidewalk outside the Minuteman Insurance Building bearing no identification, and Tracie knew the few details that would eventually emerge regarding the man would bear little more than a passing resemblance to the truth. They certainly would not include the fact that the gunman was working for the KGB with the tacit approval of at least one high-ranking CIA official—that information would be buried so deep it would never see the light of day. She pictured Winston Andrews smiling in approval.
Tracie sat up as straight as she could, no easy feat with both shoulders wrapped heavily in gauze and surgical bandages. Her arms were immobilized in slings, crossed over her chest, making her look like an angry housewife confronting an errant husband. The wounds throbbed incessantly, and doctors had told her to expect more of the same for the foreseeable future, although a full recovery was expected.
Stallings gazed at her, saying nothing. He had been silent since summoning her into his office and gruffly instructing her to take a seat in a chair placed directly in front of his desk. Tracie knew he was using silence as a weapon, an obvious attempt to draw her out, to encourage her to try and fill the emptiness with words.
She wasn’t having any of it. She was very familiar with the tactic—had used it herself many times in interrogations. She knew she could outwait him and assumed he would reach the same conclusion eventually.
Besides, she was used to silence, comfortable with solitude. She sat quietly.
Finally Stallings gave up and cleared his throat officiously. “So,” he said, “regarding the Gorbachev communique…,” and waited.
She said nothing. No question had been asked so there was no reason to speak.
She had been rescued by a Secret Service agent, who sprinted to the roof of the Minuteman Building just seconds after the bodies of Shane and the assassin crashed to the sidewalk below it.
Upon her arriv
al at the hospital, a young CIA operative she didn’t know took possession of the wrinkled envelope containing Gorbachev’s letter, shortly before Tracie was rolled into surgery to repair the damage done by the two 9mm slugs. The letter had disappeared into the massive chasm that was CIA officialdom, and she knew she would never see it again. She didn’t care.
Stallings continued, a hint of annoyance creeping into his voice. “Some in positions of authority in the administration—myself included, if you’re curious—believe you should be placed under arrest and charged with treason for opening that envelope. Its contents were classified Top Secret and, as you know, opening the letter is antithetical to every single operating principle at this agency.”
Tracie had told herself she was not going to give Stallings the satisfaction of a response, no matter how vicious or unreasonable the attack, but she couldn’t help herself. She shot back, “Really? And what about the real treason—the activity of Winston Andrews? What about that?”
“That is all hearsay, unprovable charges made by an unreliable witness against a dead man who served his country honorably for more than four decades and is not here to defend himself.”
Tracie barked a bitter laugh and Stallings said, “But in any event, let’s not get off track here. The subject is your malfeasance.”
“Malfeasance? Is that what you’re calling it? The president is alive right now because I opened that envelope.”
“Yes, well, you could argue that, I suppose—”
“It’s not an argument, it’s a fact.”
“Just the same,” Stallings said. He was a large, jowly man, with fleshy pouches below his jaw that jiggled when he talked. “There’s another fact to consider, one of the utmost importance: we cannot set the precedent of allowing operatives to handle classified information in any manner they see fit during a mission. Were it up to me, and many others, you would become an object example to every agent, now and into the future, of that concept.
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